Posted on 09/21/2016 5:10:09 AM PDT by SJackson
First large-scale study of ancient feline DNA charts domestication in Near East and Egypt and the global spread of house cats.
Thousands of years before cats came to dominate Internet culture, they swept through ancient Eurasia and Africa carried by early farmers, ancient mariners and even Vikings, finds the first large-scale look at ancient-cat DNA.
The study, presented at a conference on 15 September, sequenced DNA from more than 200 cats that lived between about 15,000 years ago and the eighteenth century ad.
Researchers know little about cat domestication, and there is active debate over whether the house cat (Felis silvestris) is truly a domestic animal — that is, its behaviour and anatomy are clearly distinct from those of wild relatives. “We don’t know the history of ancient cats. We do not know their origin, we don't know how their dispersal occurred,” says Eva-Maria Geigl, an evolutionary geneticist at the Institut Jacques Monod in Paris. She presented the study at the 7th International Symposium on Biomolecular Archaeology in Oxford, UK, along with colleagues Claudio Ottoni and Thierry Grange.
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The ancestor of the house cat is the African wild cat.
Its kittens can be tamed and they make good mousers. From there, the cat became part of our lives.
That's because there is no such thing. The fact is that it's the humans that have been domesticated - by cats.
Just ask any cat. But of course that wouldn't actually work. You would just be ignored. After all, cats aren't dogs - they're cats.
I think they were “embraced” by humans before they were useful as mousers. Beauty has its own utility. At least that’s my experience ;)
In addition, they are at the same time “hard to get,” in that they don’t demonstrate unconditional devotion the way a dog does...and yet they are easy to make contented, and we humans are pleased when we cause happiness we can view.
They give us the impression that they have very high standards which we are meeting, making us feel very good about ourselves.
Again, just my take. :)
They haven’t figured out how to cut our balls off yet. . .so we got that going for us. . which is nice.
Dogs have owners. Cats have staff.
One word: schipperke.
Too funny. I saved that video from FR sooo long ago! 15 years maybe?
Yes, but there is a theory that Housecat DNA also comes from other places on the planet. The Caspian Sea area, for instance, and another place, and these synthesized into the modern housecat.
I note that the Turkish Van cat is the only breed that actively seeks out and enjoys playing in water. Wassup wit' dat?
Cats are experts at torture and killing. They also tend to kill vermin. Best of all, they are usually harmless to humans.
Dogs are great until they decide you need to be killed. We have a horrible problem with feral dogs. Dogs in a pack become killers of things we want, like cattle, sheep and humans.
The crazy cat ladies are gonna be all over this thread.
“The fact is that it’s the humans that have been domesticated - by cats.”
Cats are manipulative geniuses. Look how they have managed to dominate the internet without even having a yahoo or gmail account.
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